Fugitive gambling tycoon Vasil Bozhkov, who is hiding out in Dubai, announced on Facebook that he is setting up a civic platform “Bulgarian summer”. The idea is for the platform to develop into a party and take part in the parliamentary elections.

“As we are going through a third national catastrophe the junta has pillaged everything. It has bought off the political forces outside parliament, it has bought off the opposition inside parliament. There is no separation of powers. All orders come from one place… Under these circumstances there is only one decision: new people in a new political force, with no connection to the people now in power,” Bozhkov writes.